Ecocritical Discourse in Urban Tumbleweed: Notes from a Tanka Diary by Harryette Mullen

Abstract

The paper proposal addresses the collection of poems Urban Tumbleweed: Notes from a Tanka Diary (2013) by Harryette Mullen – a prolific African American poet and a literary critic. The research focuses on the representation of the natural and wild vs. the cultivated and civilized in urban space with a considerable emphasis on the human and nonanthropomorphic others’ interaction in Mullen’s book of poetry. The methodology of the research is based on ecocriticism and queer ecology.